EMPOWERING EXCELLENCE government of the UAE have helped many industries to lay claim to being the best in the world. With a savvy and demanding customer base that expects nothing but the best, and a government vision to provide citizens and residents with just that, public sector entities have their work cut out for them. In this article, we explore some of the key elements that must be considered and implanted into any organization that aims to deliver product, service, and process excellence.
Design and Manage Processes to Optimize Value All processes have, as their root objective, the furtherance of organizational goals. To be profitable and acceptable to the entire organization, they must be designed from the point of view of that high-level goal. Processes need to be lean, efficient, and most importantly, strategy driven. The successful implementation of any organizational strategy is contingent on processes that have been designed and implemented in the best, most efficient manner possible. Improving process quality may seem to be a mundane task, but it is of utmost importance to the long term survival and success of any organization. Therefore, leaders should make time to manage those boring process maps covered with boxes, arrows, and diamonds. Process management should always be a core component of any organization’s management system. End-to-end processes must be designed and implemented via leadership’s direction, and should be frequently analyzed, categorized, and prioritized for effective management and continuous improvement. Through these various management approaches, an organization should be able to improve its product and service development and production processes and better manage oper-
ational and strategic performance. A constant process review and improvement cycle will ensure that an organization’s products and services continue to deliver value and meet, if not exceed, customer and stakeholder expectations, all the while cutting costs, improving efficiency, and reducing errors and waste. Quality management has been and continues to be among the most discussed business management topics of our era. Quality Management Systems such as the ISO 9001, Lean, and Six Sigma are effective quality management systems that aim at delivering and maintaining product and service excellence. These systems, or frameworks, can be adopted to assess and/or audit process effectiveness and efficiency at regular intervals and promote continuous process improvement. As such, most excellent organizations employ a large portfolio of management systems to ensure compliance and efficiency across all key functions and processes within an organization. However, as so many of us already know, earning a quality certification or accreditation is one thing; implementing a quality management system is something completely different. According to most Forbes 500 organizations, it boils down to one thing: A culture of excellence that starts with an organization’s leaders and that is adopted by all employees. The importance of innovation in business has been discussed numerous times in this segment. A culture of innovation, cultivated by the leaders, and adopted by the people of an organization is a key ingredient in ensuring your organization is and remains ahead of the competition. Innovation can be integrated into you organization’s management systems by designing work flows that integrate brain storming and idea generation activities into your process review and improvement processes. Finally, leaders must ensure
that innovation is always recognized, rewarded, and encouraged in order to keep great ideas coming.
Provide Optimum Value for Customers throughProducts and Services Any company following the EFQM Model for Excellence needs to strive to provide its customers with the highest value. These stakeholders are primarily satisfied through the products and services that are developed and produced for them. Organizations need to keep coming up with innovative ideas to optimize the value of products and services for customers and embrace creative solutions as a way to keep improving their products. For this to be possible, it is important to know exactly what the customer’s expectations, moods, and tastes are and what they deem valuable. This knowledge may be gained through market research or surveys and other forms of customer feedback. This helps anticipate where the market is going and what changes the organization may need to make to improve the current product and to help steer future product development and marketing. The company may even involve current customers and suppliers in helping to dream up and develop innovations for better products and services for existing customers and to broaden the customer base. (Also see our article in this issue, “Crowdsourcing—Empowering the Public.”) An important component of product development is technology. Technological advancements are sometimes hard to keep up with, and therefore having a savvy information technology director on board is invaluable. Excellent organizations stay up to date with the
Issue 5 - MAY 2015
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